“Sacrament for a Pandemic” 30 minute virtual performance. December 2020
“Sacrament for a Pandemic” deconstructed TV screen with video documentation. 17" x 10" x 5", March 2021
Sacrament for a Pandemic is a performance piece based around a quote from Douglas Crimp in 1987: “it is our promiscuity that will save us.” In a refusal of respectability politics that sought to blame queer people for the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Crimp asserted that it was their intimate bonds made during sex which made collective organizing and radical care for one another possible. Repeating the quote, I ritually eat and drip a semen-like fluid over my body. The performance was staged on the erotic webcam site Chaturbate in December 2020, at the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Video documentation of the performance is presented on a deconstructed TV screen, foregrounding the material reality of digital sexual interactions.
Webcam Reading Club #1. digital screen capture September 2020
These two gifs are from a 2 hour performance livestreamed on chaturbate where I read excerpts from texts including: The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry (2020) by Angela Jones, and Porn Archives (2015) Introduction by Tim Dean
Redistribute Viewers Chaturbate. Google Chrome browser extension. December 2020 - March 2021
The erotic webcam streaming site Chaturbate has many flaws with its algorithm which makes it hard for many of its workers to earn money. These flaws are all intentional design choices that exist to maximize the profit of the site, and also contribute to a wide chasm of earnings where some performers earn a significant amount, while others make much less. Chaturbate makes money through ad revenue and percentage of tip income no matter how unevenly viewers are distributed.
This extension hides both the exhibitionists, and the cams receiving a sufficient amount of views. What the viewer is left with are cams in which are registered with the site to earn money, and have less than 500 viewers. Furthermore, I also erased the viewer count from the bottom of their tab so that can not influence the viewer in their choice whether or not to watch a cam. The extension was available on the Google Chrome Store from December 2020 until March 2021, when Google removed it for being in violation of their policies.
